open space that is relevant and welcoming to the low income residents as well. >> thank you. i'm going to call the names on the public comment list. [calling speaker names] >> thank you supervisors for having this hearing this afternoon. i am kristen gable executive director of san francisco san francisco beautiful. we are here to talk about parklets and how they have the vision of active and beautiful spaces in san francisco. we have several guiding documents in the city about hour the open spaces and public spaces should be built, what standards should they conform to? what are the

guiding principles and visions for those? the open space and rec development and our better streets and plans and policies are the main documents that drive our vision in that. and parklets are some of the most tangible examples of this policies and legislation that we can see in san francisco and beyond that they're temporary. they're fast and cool as paul was telling us earlier. they prioritize the pedestrian experience. they're dynamic and multi-use spaces and they support community stewardship. our interns for the summer are going to talk more about how these spaces support the legislation that exists already but we're happy to partner with the planning department, the department of public works, with our intens and the san francisco state university. over the last two years in supporting these spaces we've hosted public forums on the future of parklets interesting into the public spaces and what works? what

doesn't? how can we improve the experience for you? and doing a socioeconomic study how the spaces are equity ec-- equitably spread throughout the state and our staff will talk more about this legislation so thank you for supporting this. >> thank you supervisors for hosting this meeting on parklets. i am nicole and an intern for sf beautiful. parklets do this by enhancing the walkability and for allowing pedestrians to shop, walk east and play and have activities that were previously not possible due to lack of space.

by over taking parking spots the parklets [inaudible] open space and automobiles. another way parklets exist policy they encourage dynamic activation and create spaces of support and invite multiple uses by having corridors with landscaping lighting and furniture and offer a wide variety of spaces and increase public transit and bicycles that offer a variety of uses. now [inaudible] will continue. >> good afternoon. thank you supervisors for having this meeting and i am [inaudible] and an intern for sf beautiful and following on nicole's discussion on it i want to add another point that these parklets -- they help engage communities in

stewardship of their own spaces and as objectives in the plan. the community members and business owners are involved in the creation and upkeep of the parklets and help foster a good relationship between them. parklets encourage businesses and stakeholders and others to work together and design the areas and increase community connections and sense of ownership over time. we have been working on a study and so far we figured out of the 40 that were approved district 1 and seven have no parklets let and i guess there were more coming this year ask and we are excited to see that. districts five and six and -- [inaudible] happy to see that. thank you. >> thank you. >> thanks for the research.

next speaker. >> good afternoon supervisors. my name is natalie burdic and the membership and volunteer director at walk san francisco. i would like to thank you for this hearing today and also point out that thanks to the city's vision and leadership san francisco was the first in the nation to concede and install public parklets and since 2010 there have been nearly 40 created in the city. the parklet program offers very important benefits in light of the fact the city is the most dangerous in the state for pedestrian injuries and fatal itds and parklets help calm traffic in narrow streets creating a sense of shared streets signaling to drivers they should slow down. in addition parklets make streets safer by inviting more people

to walk and allowing them to look out for one another in those spaces, but perhaps key due to the increased foot traffic parklets enhance the businesses that adjoin the parklets and boost the local economy. to speak to that point i refer to two reports that came out, a 2010 trial parklet impact report and 2011 impact parklet study. in those none of the businesses surveyed reported any negative impacts from the creation of parklets and all of the locations surveyed increased stationary activities and walking rates as well so for these reasons and the demand for parklets continues to grow we are glad to see the pavement and parks program moving forward and we are here to give our commitment and make sure of the under used spaces and the only

nonprofit speaking up for this in the city we continue to work with businesses and residents and city agencies to move this. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon commissioners -- excuse me, supervisors. sorry. i am nicole. i'm the coordinator manager of the excelsior group and work to revitalize mission street and the excelsior neighborhood between silver and geneva avenue and project partner with the community's first parklet and installed in 2012 and the image was on the cool slide of paul's slide show. for those less familiar with the excelsior community it's low and moderate

income and diverse and residents forn born and many are first generation imgrintds and we have a large proportion of kids, seniors and youth and our community isn't the type of community that you think of when you think of parklets in san francisco. nonetheless the parklet we have is well received by the community members and they have made it their own. one of the primary uses is a community gathering space. we had pot lots and drum circles and other musical performances and art activities at the space and 1/3 of the parklet is dedicated to a community garden. so i would say that i think parklets are the type of public space intervention that really evolved to suit the community

in which they're located and i support the parklets. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi. i am craig hallow. i am a teacher out of sight after school arts program -- >> i think there is -- >> yeah. i have a photo of the parklet that my students designed and built which was the first parklet in the excelsior district and we partnered with them and nicole to get it built and i am here today to support parklets. one of the great things about parklets is parklets are for people and can't be mentioned enough. for my students they represent an important opportunity for direct civic engagement for them to learn skills not only about design and architecture which i teach them in the architecture and public art classes but also about describing

collaboratively with the community. with the parklets they're able to do this with their community, a community that lacks open space, lacks community space, and really benefits from what parklets bring to the public's sphere. my students in this process learn not only can they change their lives by learning new skills, developing themselves, but they can also change their world directly and for students that is quite rare. high school students are born into a world where everybody is telling them what to do, what the limits are, things already exist and to have an opportunity to be able to actually change their community is very rare and very important. parklets are a great means for that, so thank

you so much. >> thank you mr. halo. i see no other speakers. anyone else would like to speak? then mr. chairman i think we can close public comment. >> public comment is closed. >> and i am grateful for the presentations and the visuals and the presentation mr. johnson and the community representatives and it's helpful to know there is a stronger city wide effort to look at best practices and helpfully implement more parklets, especially in areas that don't have them and i appreciate the information about how neighborhoods could have more of a voice as different concerns arise but worked out to beautify and open up more public space in the city and thank you very much and also mr. chairman for letting us do the hearing ahead of other important items as well. >> thank you very much supervisor mar so supervisor would you like to file this motion? is there a motion to

file? >> so moved. >> if we can take that without objection? that is is order. madam clerk please call item six. >> >> item six is for controls on market street and 6th street to van ness avenue. >> supervisor kim is the chair of this issue. >> thank you chair. it's an exciting committee and we have lots of issues in the committee and i wanted to give background and context as to why our office introduce thursday today. mid. >> >> market is a fast growing corridor with workers and residents adding to the area on a daily basis. a few weeks ago food entrepreneurs opened smalls grocery on second street announced that they would be opening the market, a 22

thousand square foot. >> >> and offer an opportunity to sell food products and promote recovering production in the manufacturing sector and revitalizing the area. it's certainly exciting to announce this type of development, specially such a ground floor commercial space without formula retail and show casing local vendors. as the area continues to develop 31 residential units coming online and 11 new tech companies that have moved in. we are expecting thousands more new residents and workers. i have been a growing advocate for the growing neighborhood and at the same time have a balanced approach to development and preserve the community assets as well. many residents not just in our district are concerned about the character of the central market neighborhood so preserving existing businesses

that made market street their home from sam's dinner, to huckleberry bikes and new businesses to encouraging a new diverse retail base with distinct retail personalities stabilizing local businesses is important part of the success of market for residentses and workers that want to live and work in a lively neighborhood, a kairkd of san francisco and not a super development and just as an example today we got the lunch from the leloved flora and neighborhoods serving retail uses be preserved and enhanced and future opportunities for resident employment and ownership are enhanced. as the area sustains to improve we have. >> >> seeing pressure from local establishments and rising rents makes it more difficult for tenants. formula retail

establishments are better capitalized and can commit to longer lease periods and create barriers to businesses that want to locate or grow in the area. already on mid-market we have 10 formula retail establishments. 1/3 of the students in the area and. >> >> restaurants in the area and pharmacies and this may eliminate small businesses which tend to be non traditional so at the same time we felt it was important to take affirmative action to protect the small business and economy that continue to contribute to the character and vitality of the neighborhood so the legislation i am introducing today puts in place interim controls for 18 months as the planning department studies formula retail study wide. this interim control is just on market

street from 6th street to van ness avenue. first it's a conditional use and not a prohibition and understanding there are certain retail uses that are a positive to the neighborhood. second, we decided to enumerate the type of retail we're asking to apply for the conditional use, so i've actually distributed copies to land use committee and the clerk. we initially carved out exception for general grocery stores despite the fact we were able to introduce it in the formula retail we realize there is a need for grocery stores and we carved out an exception for that but after disukz discussions with economic development and the mayor's office we are applying this to

limited restaurants and pharmacies and the other uses listed. third, we only limit it to sixth to van ness and acknowledging this half of market street is more residential and neighborhood oriented and it will box bigger retail east and the new mall. last i do want to acknowledge there are several pending legislations restricting formula retail throughout the city in districts two, five, eight and 10 so we know that planning has their work cut out for them and woe look forward to working with planning and include this in the study and look at king street where we have formula retail and we get comments from residents hoping to find smaller businesses in the neighborhoods. i want to thank the supporters of the legislation which including the south of market association, the arab market

association and the small business commission for the unanimous support of the legislation and i would like to have planning come up speak on the item. >> thank you supervisor. i wanted to thank you for working with us on this legislation. also just to say that we are dealing with a number of different proposals right now. we are looking city wide auto at the issue of formula retail and the impacts of formula retail uses and i do hope that we can continue to work with and you the other supervisors on this because we do think it's time and the planning commission has asked us to take a bigger picture look what is going on with formula retail so we hope to do that and are having the initial meeting next week and hope to come back with recommendations in the fall. we are support i of the legislation with the amendments that you propose today and sophie will

produce the details. >> thank you director ram. >> good afternoon supervisors. sophie hayward planning staff. i don't have much to add to the discussion due to the fact they're interim controls we didn't have time to present this to the commission but we will include them in the presentation next week which will address formula retail as an issue across the city including the mid-market area so we will produce the controls with your amendments to the planning commission next week and the department is generally supportive of the controls. thank you. >> thank you ms. haywood and i also want to state that through discussions with several of our property owners we want to make sure that this legislation impacts business that are fronting market street, and so we just wanted to make that clear as well. >> thank you president chiu.

>> that was the national question i had. >> >> initial question i had and the language says that the if any services, the french financial services, restaurants, limited restaurants and pharmacies and egress and aggress market street. is that for the five categories or just category e? >> it should be for all categories. >> okay. okay. just want to make that clear. i just want to -- is that the understanding of the planning department too? >> yeah. well i didn't have those in front of me. the question is whether you're proposing frontage or access or both beyond market? because i can see a situation where a business is on a corner and access on the side street and still facing market street. i want to be clear about the intent. >> so our intent was facing and

within egress and aggress but i see how the language is written it might be confusing for corners so would it be helpful if it said "and/or" ? >> i also might suggest the language looks like it just qualifies sub section e and if it's meant to qualify all parts i might restate it a little differently to say "the establishment of retail -- facing -- or however you deal with the issue and then say a through e" and it looks right now it just applies to pharmacys. >> deputy city attorney john gibner. both of the suggestions, tweaks look fine to me. if i can suggest that the committee adopt the amendments with those in mind and the deputy city attorney who worked on the legislation may want to tweak that just a little bit

more, but the committee's intent is clear. >> if i may. is the intent if it's on facing market street at all that it's cu? >> yes. >> even if it doesn't have access? >> yes. so if it's facing market street without egress and aggress through market street and the concern is some of the properties are large and extend down to mission so it's considered one parcel aggress but thein aggress and egress is further down from market street. >> thank you. >> i just wanted to make a global comment. i generally supported formula retail policies and i appreciate that the planning department is under going a review of all the retail policies put out there and i can imagine this creating questions in the community and i think we

want to see if there are global solutions to deal with this and having that said i generally support the colleagues to fine tune the issues and things in the districts and in this case we will as well with supervisor kim's neighborhood. >> great. supervisor kim. okay. terrific. we do have three public comment cards. [calling speaker names] mr. hart. >> good evening supervisors. tom hart on behalf of will market street known as market square. certainly when i came here today people asked me "what are you here for?" and i said formula retail and "you're going to oppose it?" . no, we support it. we applaud the efforts of supervisor kim and

trying to balance the needs of the residential community there and the workers in the area, and also trying to reserve those small business owners and operators that are existing there. we understand that. fortunately in our situation we are not displacing anyone, but i am proud to tell you that we have at least over half of our square footage on the ground floor there on market square two local operators that have one or two operations and by no means are approaching formula retail, so it's our intent to continue that, and we're very proud to join with the community in that effort, and again applaud you supervisors for helping make that area of the city more vibrant and to be a new

district, and thank you very much. >> thank you. mr. lazarus. >> supervisors, jim lazarus, san francisco chamber of commerce. we also thank supervisor kim and her staff and the planning department for working through issues with this interim measure. we support the legislation. we think it has a good balance of what will allow development on those blocks. obviously it's a different commercial feel when you go east of 6th street and the more international /national retailing that downtown san francisco is famous for, but this revitalized mid-market area is mixture of commercial and residential uses and needs a mixture of those commercial activities that residents and workers need and we think this very narrow interim control will serve the community well for the next 18 months and we thank the

supervisor for her work on this matter. >> thank you. next speaker. mr. ms. rogers. >> thank you supervisors. alice rogers again. thank you for having all these areas of interest on the agenda today. i want to thank supervisor kim for proposing this legislation and while i am not a resident of this market demographic we in the neighborhoods and south beach and rincon hill and mission bay also have issues relating to retail, so we're extremely excited to hear that the planning department is taking a new look. i think that the giantos the sea lot wall have broken new grounds with retail and the approach to managing it sort of globally and willing to subsidize small neighborhood vendors to come in there and create the vitality

that's needed and so i think if we can develop some new ways to perhaps do cooperative businesses in larger spaces so the rest can be smaller for businesses it could be great. thanks for your work on this. >> thank you. next speaker. >> thank you for allowing me to speak. i didn't have a card but supervisor kim i just wanted to support this legislation. i serve on the soma stabilization group and we are aware of the small business and there are many families south of market and when we have meetings about public safety, about families, about food access, any of these in soma it's rare if ever that

any of the large formula retail stores come and visit us whereas small businesses are there supporting us and trying to continue to make this neighborhood a place that thrives and thrives for everybody so i really support this legislation. i had understood there was some folks who were interested in slowing down this process and i want to urge this interim to be passed now. it's too late already and needs to go forward and support the city as we go through the lengthy process with a city wide action so thank you supervisor. >> mr. brooks. >> good afternoon supervisors. eric brooks representing san francisco green party and the local grass roots organization "our city." one of the issues that we worked on was formula retail and getting a lot of restrictions put on against it

so i want to definitely applaud supervisor kim for going after interim protections. just from a global perspective i would say even though i'm a californian and i spend time in the midwest where there is no protection against formula retail and it's like living inside of a cement shopping mall. it's a real drag and the best way to ruin san francisco economy is not put restrictions on formula retail. another issue is no matter how good a formula retail installation is for a neighborhood, no matter the face lift it gives, you still have the issue that a large amount of the money made at the business, even if hiring local people, a large part of the money leaves the economy and doesn't come back and the more it's with local businesses the money will

stay in the area and that comes to the last point and this distressed economy and real estate wants a another big bubble and it's the only escape and they're pushing that now especially with the new dot comrush that we've got so we're going to be hit with a lot of attempts to get a lot of formula retail in, way too much, so i say make it permanent, make it more restrictive, anything that you can do to strongly limit formula retail is desirable. thanks. >> next speaker. >> hello supervisors. i am julian dash. i own a business called holy stitch and i have pop up shops on 6th street and notice a big difference in being closer o